I live in suburban NC, and almost everyone is religious. A large portion of those are conservative Christians. Any time there is a news story posted on local stations' facebook pages, comments are rife with God references. If it's something good, people praise God. If it's something bad, it happened because God is taken out of government and school, or God is called upon to wrap his loving arms around the people involved. There was a story a few days ago about a little baby born with 4 kidneys. 2 of the kidneys were defective and actually causing harm to the child. Actual comments exchange went as follows

Commenter 1 (clearly didn't read the story, and was responding to the headline "Baby born with 4 kidneys"):
What a blessing! The extra kidneys can be used to help other babies. God has a plan for this baby!

Commenter 2: The extra kidneys are not functioning and are harming the baby

Commenter 1: I didn't realize that. Nevertheless, I still believe it's all part of his loving plan.

The following 2 users Like beeglez's post:2 users Like beeglez's postDLJ (23-11-2014), Bows and Arrows (24-11-2014)

As for how it affects me personally, I have found a community of atheists in nearby towns, so I do have that. My family knows and accepts it, though most are religious to varying degrees. My friends know and also accept it. Co-workers know I'm 'not religious', but I have not used the term atheist with them. My clients don't know, and I fear they would no longer want to see me if they knew. I have had occasion to argue with co-workers about religion a couple of times. Once I was talking about a friend who was suffering from depression, and the co-worker asked if he'd spoken to a minister. I said casually "no, he's an atheist". She snorted and said "Well, there's the problem. He needs God" That pissed me off, and I said "That's not true. Religious people get depression all the time" I'm typically not confrontational, but I guess I was assertive or angry enough that she didn't have a comeback. Most recently, another co-worker and I were sending e-mails. I sent them under my name, and she was sitting by reading off the addresses to me. She could see my screen as I entered them. One of the names had the same first 2 letters as the local atheist meetup email address, so when I started to enter it, the email with 'atheist' in the title clearly popped up. Oops! I immediately clicked it away, but think she might have seen it. I spent the next few days paranoid that she was treating me differently, and worried that it would spread through the office. But, so far, nothing has come of it.

(21-11-2014 05:17 PM)Ocean theRAPIST Wrote: I grew up in San Diego. Was brought up in the Mormon faith. Never agreed with it (I was very rebellious). 10 years ago my family decided to move to Utah to be at their promised land. So at the time I thought I had rid myself of religious family. Then I Meet my wife who says she is a "Christian" but seems to know nothing about the Bible or any real beliefs. Luckily she isn't a creationist. Her father on the other hand is a very educated YEC. I have a lot of trouble because of him. He always wants to prove his way is the right way. In fact, his way is so right that he won't even go to church because he doesn't believe that true Christians go to church. The problem isn't with his beliefs for himself. The problem is that we have an 18 month old son that he wants to indoctrinate with his beliefs. He and his wife watch our son while my wife and I work. I told him I wanted my son to grow up and choose for himself what to believe and be able to question without feeling guilty. Of course he does not agree and feels he needs to save his soul. Right now I've been in a 2 week debate with him over the flood. Is not going over easy. I somehow got lucky choosing atheist friends from a young age. So I got lucky there.
Living in San Diego my whole life I haven't had to deal with to many religious people besides my own family. Only on occasion at work (my boss is very straight edge Christian, if I told him I was atheist I'm not sure how I'd be treated after that). Religious people here aren't too in your face about it, even though it is everywhere.

My years in South Carolina made being atheist a bit of a challenge. When you meet people, after the exchange of names you are invariably asked where you go to church. Everywhere I worked I was faced with prayers. My kids were expected to pray before a band performance, cheerleading, football - you name it. Like we didn't have enough problems over actually letting black people into our home - oh the horror.

Though in TX now I simply don't interact with people except on a very superficial level. I do a serious eyeroll when I get the "Have a blessed day" when shopping. Religion really hasn't been an issue at work but my department consists of three people. The other two are quite young. One is from a fairly religious family but she is such a wild child that it isn't an issue with her. The other is a young single mother from a severely dysfunctional family who so far has only apologized to the ceiling for saying god damn. She, however, doesn't apologize for other swear words.

It just isn't something that I have found myself in a position to discuss very often. And when in a place where the god squad is too overt - I remove myself. I suppose staying primarily at my house helps insulate me from having to deal with the religionuts.

I am just too old and tired to deal with that shit any more.

See here they are the bruises some were self-inflicted and some showed up along the way. - JF

I live in SE Louisiana, It is extremely religious here (as is my family), but in the Catholic flavor. Not so much in your face stuff like some of the protestants. Because of the environment I keep it to myself.

I live in north Florida. There is a church on every corner here. I don't go to church. My social circle is extremely limited because of my non-belief. I no longer have a Facebook because I'm constantly bombarded with religion on my feed and I can't post anything contrary because it wouldn't be tolerant.

I don't mind being friends with Christians, but when you have such different views, it feels like it isn't a genuine friendship.

Like many of you, where I live is a place where Christianity is the only way of thinking. Anything other than Christianity is idiotic and crazy.

"Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation."
-Oscar Wilde

Posted by Bucky Ball - Yesterday 10:33 PM
(21-11-2014 05:17 PM)Ocean theRAPIST Wrote:
I grew up in San Diego. Was brought up in the Mormon faith. Never agreed with it (I was very rebellious). 10 years ago my family decided to move to Utah to be at their promised land. So at the time I thought I had rid myself of religious family. Then I Meet my wife who says she is a "Christian" but seems to know nothing about the Bible or any real beliefs. Luckily she isn't a creationist. Her father on the other hand is a very educated YEC. I have a lot of trouble because of him. He always wants to prove his way is the right way. In fact, his way is so right that he won't even go to church because he doesn't believe that true Christians go to church. The problem isn't with his beliefs for himself. The problem is that we have an 18 month old son that he wants to indoctrinate with his beliefs. He and his wife watch our son while my wife and I work. I told him I wanted my son to grow up and choose for himself what to believe and be able to question without feeling guilty. Of course he does not agree and feels he needs to save his soul. Right now I've been in a 2 week debate with him over the flood. Is not going over easy. I somehow got lucky choosing atheist friends from a young age. So I got lucky there.
Living in San Diego my whole life I haven't had to deal with to many religious people besides my own family. Only on occasion at work (my boss is very straight edge Christian, if I told him I was atheist I'm not sure how I'd be treated after that). Religious people here aren't too in your face about it, even though it is everywhere.

The only problem I see with goodwithoutgod's post about the flood. Is he said all the water from the flood came from rain. The Bible says it came from 2 sources. Rain and from the depths of the earth. My father in law uses the earth source a lot. He keeps telling me that scientists have found enough water in the earth to raise our oceans 10x. I don't really know much about that but even if there was enough it doesn't prove a flood happened.

(24-11-2014 02:04 PM)Ocean theRAPIST Wrote: The only problem I see with goodwithoutgod's post about the flood. Is he said all the water from the flood came from rain. The Bible says it came from 2 sources. Rain and from the depths of the earth. My father in law uses the earth source a lot. He keeps telling me that scientists have found enough water in the earth to raise our oceans 10x. I don't really know much about that but even if there was enough it doesn't prove a flood happened.

(24-11-2014 02:04 PM)Ocean theRAPIST Wrote: The only problem I see with goodwithoutgod's post about the flood. Is he said all the water from the flood came from rain. The Bible says it came from 2 sources. Rain and from the depths of the earth. My father in law uses the earth source a lot. He keeps telling me that scientists have found enough water in the earth to raise our oceans 10x. I don't really know much about that but even if there was enough it doesn't prove a flood happened.

The other thing is that it's not a damn reservoir. The abundant existence of hydrated compounds in the Earth's crust is in no way comparable to a big ol' ocean somewhere underground. What the study indicates is that - oxygen and hydrogen being really common - a lot of water was formed with and incorporated into various minerals (note that even the "water rich" hydrated substance in the study was ~1-2% water by mass).

This amount has been more or less constant throughout all known geological history; it's not mobile or recoverable. The precise amount of water on the surface of the Earth varies, but sea levels basically track to the size of the polar icecaps and degree of permafrost.

Unfogged and cjlr
Thanks forthe info. After one of your previous responses I stumbled on another thread here talking about the water found under the earth's crust. The scientist that discovered it claimed "the water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core". So, basically not in liquid form.